This week, a senior security official called me. Naturally, I won't name it, but it's a very senior one. Someone I talk to quite a bit about work, but this time he called on a different matter. "They don't understand," he said, "they're playing with fire. It will end in disaster." There was no need to explain to me who "they" were. The official was referring to government ministers. I asked him why he was so upset. "From what the public doesn't see and doesn't understand, and from what ministers don't want to see and don't want to understand."
I asked him to elaborate. He started with immediate security. Our enemies, he said, see the sights and hear the voices. What happened last Passover, with the growing audacity on all fronts, may soon happen at a volume many times higher on all fronts separately and simultaneously. Most disturbing is the Lebanon sector: Hassan Nasrallah was filled with battle spirit. He is more rude, and less afraid. This is reminiscent of his behavior on the eve of the Second Lebanon War, only today he thinks we are significantly weaker. He is wrong, but the price we pay to teach him a lesson will be heavy in lives and money.
On his way to Azerbaijan, Minister Galant addressed the security incident on the Lebanese border // Photo: Lilach Shoval
What else, I asked. The Americans, he said. You have to be blind not to understand the significance of their distancing from us. This, too, is reflected in the increased self-confidence of enemies who feel we have no back, but also in the cooling of relations with friends. The Gulf states are less enthusiastic, and relations with Saudi Arabia seem like a distant dream. And that's without talking about Iran's nuclear program. Worst of all, it will have an impact on the work itself. You don't see it with your eyes yet, but it will come. Transactions will stall, the transfer of information will creak. That way we won't bring security, on the contrary – everything vis-à-vis the Americans will be much more difficult.
Worrying question marks
Then there's the economy, he said. When the economy shrinks by NIS 150 billion, it has implications for security. When high-tech flees from here, it has implications for security. When foreign investment does not arrive, especially in the technological world, it has implications for security. When the Americans restrict our cyber, it has implications for security. When money goes to less important things – at a time when the army is stretched to the limit because of the challenges on all fronts – it has implications for security.
I wondered which of these he was most bothered about. He replied that something else: from the loss of internal cohesion. From a man's war against his brother. The fact that an entire sector for which service and volunteering were the essence of Israeliness puts a question mark over them, and another sector – which has not served or contributed to security one day in its life – puts a question mark over the sector that serves. Anyone who thinks that if there is a war tomorrow we will embrace and become stronger may be fooled, he warned.
I asked him where he thought it was going. As mentioned, this is a senior. Someone experienced, who knows. "To catastrophe," he replied dryly. I asked if he wasn't exaggerating. "I wish I was," he replied. The process, he added, could be quick. If the amendment on reasonableness passes second and third readings, pilots will announce that they are no longer coming. Not individual, but mass. In March, 1,300 retired and retired aircrew signed a warning that they would stop serving, this time it would become a reality. They will be joined by intelligence and cyber personnel, and quite a few members of the special units. In other words, all the systems that give Israel its dramatic added value over its enemies will suffer a severe blow.
What then? Asked. We'll be more exposed and we'll bleed more, he replied. As a result, we will have to be more aggressive in our responses, we will kill many more civilians, and the world will not be in favor of us. We will not have an automatic veto by the Americans in the UN Security Council, and commissions of inquiry will begin. There will be demands to prosecute Israelis in The Hague. As a result, more will retire, and the crisis will quickly reach the permanent army and regular service as well, especially if at the same time the government also exempts yeshiva students from military service by law.
It was a long, bleak conversation. What I have brought here is only an extract from it. Toward the end, I asked if he didn't see a single bright spot in the darkness he presented. Of course there is, he replied, we have come out of difficult situations in the past. In the War of Independence, in the Yom Kippur War, in other crises. We have all the data to put this behind us and return to prosperity, but it depends on the government, or rather on one man: Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who is the real objector?
Netanyahu understands all this. There's no way you can't. In the existing Israeli system, he is the oldest and most experienced. But something about this round makes him behave the opposite of what he used to. Maybe it's the sentence, maybe the immediate environment, maybe the hubris, maybe the rejection from the opposing camp, and maybe all the answers are correct.
One way or another, the old Netanyahu would not have jeopardized relations with the United States. He certainly would not have helped crush the economy. And there is no situation in the world that would have opened the smallest crack to possible harm to the army, and consequently to security. The fact that he still avoided a cabinet meeting today to discuss the potential damage of continuing security legislation is an eclipse. Defense Minister Yoav Galant demanded such a discussion in the previous round, and was systematically refused. He recruited the chief of staff and the heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad, but Netanyahu continued to refuse. Then Gallant spoke, was fired and stayed, but the basic situation did not change.
This week, Gallant spoke out strongly against insubordination (or non-volunteering). The IDF also speaks in seemingly clear words: Whoever is summoned and does not show up will be dealt with. It's nice as a title, but it won't hold water. That is, yes, if there are a few who don't come, but the dam will collapse if the numbers are dramatic. Everyone, including Netanyahu, understands that this is the Archimedean point. That is why such a significant double effort is invested: from within the army – to embrace those who might quit; And outside the army - from the ranks of the government and coalition - to denounce them as traitors in an attempt to deter them.
This is, of course, ridiculous, given the past of those criticized. This is even more ridiculous considering the daily damage that Israeli government ministers cause to the State of Israel. Amichai Shikli, Minister of Diaspora Affairs, is the number one damper to the connection with the Diaspora. My uncle Amsalem (who is in charge of the nuclear program, apropos of probability) is the greatest hater of Jews among the Jews. There is no reason to mince words about Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. They are agents of total chaos, but to their credit this is their stated agenda.
Minister Smotrich. There is no reason to mince words, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
One can be amazed at others. Ofir Akunis, for example. His statement that the protesters have only just discovered the Israeli flag is pathetic. Many of them wrapped in this flag the bodies of their comrades who were killed in Israel's wars. Miri Regev's statements don't add respect to her either. As someone who grabbed a can in the disengagement, she should know something about protests a little more violent than the current one.
You have to hope that someone will get intellect, or at least fear. Otherwise it will be much scarier here. The chances of that happening seem slim, and the nerves of the summer heat don't add to the optimism. Still, as the official said, and he was right, Israel has known difficult days, and has emerged from them. Only then she had leadership. If there is one today - please show up immediately.
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